Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (21 page)

"King
George is the liar, and you're the nockhole for believing!"

"And it's
Whig bum-fodder like you what printed these broadsides!"

"Where's
the tar and feathers, lads?
 
I say we
give these Tories some new clothes!"

Approval
resounded from half the crowd, and the mob congested.
 
A pistol shot rang out from within the knot of people.
 
Sophie and the others galloped the horses
back north on the road several hundred feet before heading west into the marsh
and paralleling the road by a quarter mile.
 
Brother killing brother, neighbor against neighbor, father betraying son
— and not a redcoat in sight.
 
That seemed
the way of the war in the southern colonies.

Quite a
difference from the day before, when they'd traveled without incident to their
campsite between New Ebenezer and Abercorn.
 
Alton, too, was tame in comparison.
 
Not for the first time on the journey did she realize how fortunate
she'd been to live so sheltered a life.
 
And she thought with longing of her safe, comfortable bedroom and her
safe, comfortable vocation at the printing press.

Mathias,
scouting ahead, found a ridge of dry land half a mile from the road, sheltered
by a grove of pines.
 
After the horses
had been unsaddled and rubbed down, he and the Creek brothers disappeared to
hunt with their bows.
 
Jacques led the
horses down the ridge for water.
 
Sophie
and David built a fire.

Although she'd
no difficulty lighting the resinous pinewood, she'd have given three armloads
of it in exchange for a couple of seasoned hardwood logs, for fire devoured the
pinewood and gave them more sparks and pops than heat or light.
 
She and David were forced to forage in the
gathering dusk for more firewood.
 
She
returned to the fire ahead of him, dumped a load of branches, and began feeding
them into the flames.

A twig snapped
behind her.
 
Snatching up her musket,
she rose, pivoted, and peered into the surrounding foliage.
 
"David?"

"Damn,"
said a man, "look at that.
 
It's a
woman
."

She faced the
voice, musket raised.
 
"Show
yourself."

Response
slurred from the opposite side of the foliage.
 
"Tad, you reckon we ought to leave anything of her for Ben?"

Laughter rumbled
from several men in the foliage.
 
Fear
chilled her.
 
She cocked the musket
fully.

"Man, I
don't know."
 
That voice sounded
slurred, too.
 
The men were drunk.
 
"You reckon she knows how to use that
musket?"

"She's
looking like she's used it before."

Mere threats
with her musket might not be enough with these men.
 
Zack MacVie's screams of agony haunted her memory and flooded her
with nausea.
 
The thought of killing
another human was almost as horrifying as that of being assaulted.
 
Her hands began shaking, and she silently
implored the men to back off.

"What the
hell, there's six of us and one of her.
 
Who's had the least whiskey?
 
Jed, go on out there and coax that musket out of her hands."

"Kiss my
arse, Hoppy.
 
She's too old to be worth
having my jewels blown away."

"Yah, and
I like 'em with big bubbies."

"Jove
bugger the lot of you.
 
I say she can't
aim that thing worth shit.
 
I'm getting
me that oyster basket."

A man tottered
from the foliage unshaven, reeking of whiskey.
 
Terror commanded Sophie's reaction.
 
Two seconds later, a leer still pinched the left side of his face as he
collapsed, the right side of his face blown away.
 
With her discharged musket, she clubbed the groin of the closest
bandit who leaped out at her.
 
He
doubled over in torment.
 
The other four
wrested the musket away and pinned her arms behind her.

Breath stinking
of whiskey and rotting teeth slammed her face.
 
"She
is
awful old and skinny."

"Release
me!"
 
She thrashed for escape, and
pain shot through her shoulders.

"Shit, why
bother Ben with her?"
 
Fumbling
with the buttons on his breeches, the bandit tottered, his sneer revealing
blackened teeth.
 
"I'll empty my
own stones in her —"

"Sophie!"
 
The back of the bandit's head dissolved in a
spray of bone fragments, brains, and blood, and he sagged to the ground.
 
A snarling David charged through the black
powder smoke, knife raised.

She twisted and
jammed her heel into the instep of one of the men holding her.
 
He howled and turned her loose.
 
Another man whipped out a pistol and aimed
at David.
 
The third man pinned her arms
again.
 
She screamed.
 
"David, look out!"
 
The report of the pistol echoed through the
trees.
 
David cried out in agony,
dropped his knife, clutched his left upper arm, and fell to his knees.
 
"David!"

"Son of a
stinking slut — Ben warned you about wasting ammunition!"

"Kiss my
arse, Tad!
 
He was going to spit me on
that knife!"

"How many
more of them are there?"

"I don't
know."

"Let's get
the hell out of here."

"Without
their money?"

"Those two
weren't traveling alone.
 
We're probably
outnumbered.
 
Take the old nag's musket,
and let's begone."

"With the
old nag?"

"Why
not?
 
Ben may want her after all."

Like hell.
 
Arms still pinned behind, Sophie stomped for
another instep.
 
When she missed, she
tried to wriggle free.
 
One of the other
men seized her plait and brought the point of his knife within six inches of
her left eye.
 
"You cooperate, or I
put your eye out."

She ceased
struggling, her gaze fixed on the knifepoint, her gut churning.

"That's
better.
 
Wheezer, on your feet, you
whoreson!"
 
The man kicked the leg
of the bandit who was still incapacitated on the ground from her blow to his
groin.
 
Without waiting to see whether
he revived, the trio marched her from the campsite and down the ridge.

On marshy moonlit
ground, they halted long enough to bind her hands behind with a kerchief, long
enough for the pistol-toting bandit to reload.
 
Stinking of sweat, he waved the pistol in her face.
 
"Make any trouble for us, and you're
carrion."
 
He spat near her feet for
emphasis.

They marched
her across the tall-grass salt marsh eastward.
 
When she stumbled and fell, bruising her left shoulder, they hauled her
to her feet and shoved her onward, ever deeper into the nightmare.
 
Terror kneaded her stomach.
 
She tried not to wonder what size reception
she'd entertain at her destination or anticipate her fate with the entire gang.

Chapter Sixteen

AFTER A HIKE of
a quarter hour, they entered another pine grove.
 
Sophie smelled horse dung, wood smoke, whiskey, and human waste.
 
Staggering into the cleared circle around
their campfire, she tallied a couple dozen bandits before one of her captors
gave her a shove that sprawled her into a noisome mass of pine straw.
 
"Look here, Ben, we brought you an
oyster basket!"

A heavyset,
oily man heaved himself up off a fallen log and approached her, eyes bloodshot
with whiskey and fatigue.
 
He yanked her
to her feet, jerked her head back by her plait, and groped her breasts through
her shirt.
 
"Bloody old and skinny,
but I reckon she'll do for me.
 
And you
boys are welcome to her afterwards."

Stinking of
diarrhea and whiskey, Ben wheeled her around and paraded her past the men, who
shouted their suggestions for his sport.
 
Terror coiled in Sophie's stomach and rotated dark specks through her
vision.
 
This wasn't a nightmare from
which she could awaken.
 
No one was
going to rescue her.
 
She'd be violated
by the mob for hours, unless she found a way to rescue herself.
 
Her brain clutched for something she'd read
earlier that day on a broadside, a caption about rebels exchanging a kidnapped
nobleman for one of their own destined for the gallows.
 
Did she have the presence and mettle to pull
off a bluff?
 
Anything was worth a try.

She honed an
imperious edge on the British accent she'd heard so often.
 
"Release me this moment!"
 
Thank heaven her voice didn't betray how she
shook.
 
"None of you is man enough
to recognize a woman nobly born!"

The command in
her tone sliced through enough of the mob's derision to taper off some of the
noise.

"A woman
nobly born?"
 
Ben roared with
laughter, turned her loose, and leered at his men.
 
"Sure, and next we'll entertain Lady Pitt, the Duchess of
Chatham, or perhaps Queen Charlotte herself.
 
Tad, where'd you find this doxy?
 
In a tavern?"

"Eh, no,
Ben.
 
At a campsite about a mile and a
half away."

"You
killed everyone who was with her, right?"

"Eh, no,
Ben.
 
Sly shot one of them, but we ran
off before the others showed.
 
Here's
the woman's musket —"

"
What
?
 
You bleeding idiot, you left a trail for
them to find, and you bring me a bleeding musket?"
 
Ben whipped a knife from his belt and flung
it.
 
Tad screamed, the knife embedded in
his chest, his hands clutching at the shaft, his body convulsing.
 
Keeling forward onto one knee, he succeeded
in prying the knife out.
 
Heart blood
spurted forth.
 
Sophie closed her eyes a
moment and shuddered over the bandits' idea of discipline.

Ben waddled
over, kicked a gurgling Tad aside, wiped his knife off on Tad's clothing, and
shoved it back into his belt.
 
He
dragged another bandit by the shirt closer for scrutiny and flung him toward
the trees.
 
"Stand watch with
Rabby.
 
You, too, Jed.
 
You boys got the least whiskey in you."

The two trudged
off to patrol the perimeter, taking their muskets with them.
 
Ben snatched up Sophie's musket, swiveled
his gaze around the group grown silent and sullen, then headed back over to
her, drawing up so close that his foul breath coated her.
 
"What's your name, woman?"

She held his
stare, not knowing whether he could tell how her stomach still heaved.
 
Since he seemed familiar with the names of
British nobles, she raked her memory for the name of one who supported the
cause of the colonists.
 
Lennox, the
third duke of Richmond, perhaps.
 
"Lady Sophia Lennox."

Ben's eyebrow
rose.
 
"Lennox?
 
As in Charles Lennox, the secretary of
state?"
 
She nodded.

A brigand
across the fire sounded apprehensive.
 
"Ain't Lennox partial to the patriot cause, Ben?"

Another outlaw
spoke out.
 
"Yeah, if she's a
Lennox, we can't touch her."

"Been
sticking up for us, Lennox has.
 
The
gods know we need more of his kind over there."

Ben bellowed
with laughter.
 
"Cow
piss!"
 
He slapped Sophie's
shoulder.
 
"'Lady' Lennox, suppose
you explain to me what an English gentlewoman is doing out here in the middle
of the night dressed like a man?"

Was her bluff
actually working?
 
The bandits around
the fire were paying attention.
 
She
lifted her chin and maintained the imperial accent.
 
"I am returning to Savannah from St. Augustine with my
escort of twelve.
 
As for why I'm dressed
like a man, well, I invite you to don stays and a petticoat and see how
comfortably you can travel in such a manner."

Bandits
guffawed.
 
"Ben, we'd like to see
you in a petticoat."
 
"Yah,
Ben, with stays jamming your teats up your nose."
 
"Wag your arse on the wharf.
 
See what money you fetch!"

"Shut up,
you bung-hole cleaners!"
 
Ben began
pacing.
 
"Didn't you hear her?
 
She had an escort of
twelve
."

"All we
saw was one.
 
And Sly shot him."